The Docks of New York | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Josef von Sternberg |
Written by | Jules Furthman |
Based on | The Dock Walloper by John Monk Saunders |
Produced by | J.G. Bachmann |
Starring | George Bancroft Betty Compson Olga Baclanova |
Cinematography | Harold Rosson |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 76 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
The Docks of New York is a 1928 American silent drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring George Bancroft, Betty Compson, and Olga Baclanova. The movie was adapted by Jules Furthman from the John Monk Saunders story The Dock Walloper. [1] [2]
An American tramp steamer docks in New York harbor sometime in the early years of the 20th century before prohibition. In the bowels of the ship, coal stokers are shutting down the furnaces in the anticipation of shore leave for the night. The bullying third engineer, Andy (Mitchell Lewis), warns the exhausted crew that they will be punished if they return drunk when the vessel sails the following morning. The stokers gather to leer at crude pornographic graffiti scrawled on the engine room wall before debarking to carouse at the local gin-mills.
On shore, Andy enters The Sandbar, dance-hall saloon, craving a beer and female companionship. He has an unexpected encounter with his estranged wife, Lou (Olga Baclanova). During his absence of three years, she has become a habitué of the saloon, where she freely enjoys male companionship. The “couple” joins one another for a drink; no love is lost between them.
The stoker Bill Roberts (George Bancroft) – a swaggering brawler when on leave – rescues a drowning prostitute named Mae (Betty Compson) who has leapt off the dock to end her sordid life. Bill, ignoring the admonishment of his sidekick “Sugar” Steve (Clyde Cook), impassively carries the semi-conscious woman to a room above The Sandbar, indifferent to the protests from the proprietor's wife, Mrs. Crimp (May Foster). Lou intercedes to provide first-aid and revives Mae, a fallen angel like herself. Bill's growing awareness of Mae's physical beauty assumes a proprietary quality. He fetches her a beverage from the bar and presents her with a pretty dress he steals from a pawn shop next door. Bill exhorts her to join him for the evening, and Mae, distraught and vulnerable, accepts his invitation. They meet downstairs in the raucous tavern.
Andy attempts to pull rank and cut in on the couple, but the powerful stoker drives him off with blows. Lou, observing her husband's boorishness, looks on with contempt. Mae and Bill mutually confess their sexual histories to one another, she with regret, he with masculine pride. So as to win Mae's favors for the night, Bill consents to marry her on the spot, and Mae wistfully obliges.
The local missionary “Hymn Book” Harry (Gustav von Seyffertitz) is summoned and sternly delivers the sacrament. Lou provides Mae with a ring: her own, now superfluous wedding ring. The couple takes their vows, each shamefacedly, and the formerly boisterous patrons observe with mock solemnity, then erupt in cheers when the newlyweds kiss.
The following morning, Bill slips quietly from the flophouse honeymoon suite, without a word to Mae. Andy, observing that the stoker is abandoning his “wife”, goes to Mae's room, where she has just discovered Bill's desertion. Andy attempts to force himself on her, but Lou arrives and guns him down. The police suspect Mae of the murder, but Lou confesses and is arrested.
Under the blandishments of “Sugar” Steve, Bill takes leave of Mae. Driven to distraction by his perfidy, she angrily drives him from her room.
Aboard the steamer, Bill has an epiphany. He bolts from the subterranean furnaces to the sunny deck, leaps overboard and swims to shore. There he inquires as to Mae's whereabouts and discovers that she is in custody at Night Court, charged with stealing the clothing he had bestowed on her. Moments after the judge sentences her to jail, Bill presents himself and confesses to the crime, exonerating Mae. He pledges to reunite with Mae after he serves his 60-day sentence, and she agrees to wait for him.
On May 5, 1928, Paramount Pictures announced their next picture would be The Docks of New York; with Josef von Sternberg enlisted to direct and George Bancroft to star with an adapted script of Monk Saunders's The Dock Walloper provided by Jules Furthman. Before production von Sternberg and Furthman went to New York to conduct research for the film.
A highly collaborative work, The Docks of New York benefited from the screenwriting of Jules Furthman, such that “the director’s vision...cannot be easily distinguished from Furthman’s scenarios." [3] Scripting for Sternberg's most celebrated movies, among them Morocco (1930), Shanghai Express (1932) and Blonde Venus (1932) was provided by Furthmann. [4] Sternberg also benefited from the cinematography of Harold Rosson, who was inspired by the director's “fresh, innovative ideas.” Art director Hans Dreier, formerly of Germany's UFA, created the evocative set for the Sandbar saloon with its subjective demimonde atmosphere of Sternberg's New York waterfront. Dreier would subsequently oversee studio production design for decades as head of Paramount's art department. [5]
Production began on the film on June 25, with principal photography beginning on July 10, 1928. The production was shot entirely at Paramount Studios where they created sets to resemble the New York City waterfront.
The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, formed by the film industry in 1922, regulated the content of films through a list of subjects that were to be avoided. While Betty Compson portrayed a prostitute in The Docks of New York, this was acceptable as prostitution was not explicitly barred so long as it was not forced (i.e., white slavery) and aspects of her work was not directly shown in the film. [6] The wedding ceremony held in the bar makes later activities in the film ambiguous.
The film opened in New York City on September 16, 1928, at the Paramount Theatre and was released on September 29 throughout other parts of the country. The film earned $88,000 in its first week of release at the Paramount Theatre, breaking a record set previously by von Sternberg's 1927 film Underworld , also starring George Bancroft.
Variety called the film “a corking program picture” and says the film misses greatness by a “whisker”. They also praised the performance of Bancroft, the direction of von Sternberg, the cinematography of Harold Rosson, and the intertitles from Julian Johnson. [7]
Film critic John Baxter observed that "The Docks of New York...is today the most popular of Sternberg's silent films, although it did poorly at the box-office on its release." [8]
The Docks of New York was one of the last films of the silent era. Previewed by the New York City press during the same week that saw the fanfare opening of Al Jolson’s The Singing Fool , Sternberg’s film was “completely passed over in the clamor” that accompanied the advent of talking pictures. Film critic Andrew Sarris lamented that Sternberg's film “quickly vanished in undeserved oblivion...confirm[ing] Chaplin’s observation that the silent movies learned their craft just about the time they went out of business.” [9]
Museum of Modern Art film curator Charles Silver ranked The Docks of New York as “probably the last genuinely great silent film made in Hollywood [rivaling] Chaplin’s masterpieces of the 1930s.” [10] With respect to Sternberg's oeuvre, The Docks of New York was “the first in which his prodigious pictorial genius was fully realized.” [5] A “deceptively simple” and ‘emotionally affecting film”, Sternberg combined spectacle and emotion, where "his characters gain in clarity what they lose in complexity." [9]
The Docks of New York was added to the Criterion Collection as part of the “Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg” series. [11]
Despite the lurid mise-en-scène that provides the canvas for Sternberg's imagination, the film is neither "a crime thriller, nor a hardboiled noir...The Docks of New York is an elegant and elegiac love story [and] the most emotionally affecting film" of Sternberg's career. [5] [13]
A standard melodrama with a "deceptively simple" plot, Sternberg does not dwell upon the social conditions of the working class figures; he is "not concerned with the class consciousness of the characters." Rather than striving to be realistic, Sternberg's photography served to "give visual experience feelings more than facts." Through the combination of camera movement (as opposed to montage) and his mise-en-scène compositions "that closely resemble German expressionist cinema", Sternberg conveys a "deeply felt emotional maturity and raw passion not previously seen on the American screen." [14]
Film critic William Blick reserves special mention for the film's wedding scene:
"The wedding scene is perhaps the most memorable in the film, after Bill has agreed to marry Mae as a dare. In the crowded bar, a preacher is dragged in to issue the vows. Bill takes his vows knowing that he cannot keep them, and Mae earnestly accepts hers while others mock. The sharp contrast between the barroom setting and the solemnity of the wedding vows makes for an interesting paradox; one that runs throughout the film and focuses upon doomed companionship amidst the canvas of the docks of New York." [15]
Critic Andrew Sarris considers the "sewing" scene, with its use of "subjective camera" the key psychological moment of the film:
"Sternberg quietly dramatizes the emotional transition with a scene in which Compson sews Bancroft's pocket after it has been torn by Bancroft's jealous buddy [Clyde Cook]. This pocket, like Desdemona's handkerchief, becomes the visual correlative of the drama, the battleground between conjugal feelings and fraternal loyalties. To emphasize the stakes in this struggle, Sternberg even shifts from an objective to a subjective camera viewpoint by photographing out-of-focus the needle Compson tries to thread through her tears. When Bancroft take the needle away and threads it himself, the domestic irony of the situation takes on a new dimension. It becomes psychologically through this external gesture that Bancroft needs Compson's love more than her care, and that, conversely, Compson has more love in her than care..." [16] [17]
In 1999, The Docks of New York was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation. [18] [19]
Morocco is a 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, and Adolphe Menjou. Based on the 1927 novel Amy Jolly by Benno Vigny and adapted by Jules Furthman, the film is about a cabaret singer and a Legionnaire who fall in love during the Rif War, and whose relationship is complicated by his womanizing and the appearance of a rich man who is also in love with her. The film is famous for a scene in which Dietrich performs a song dressed in a man's tailcoat and kisses another woman, both of which were considered scandalous for the period.
Thunderbolt is a 1929 American pre-Code proto-noir film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring George Bancroft, Fay Wray, Richard Arlen, Tully Marshall and Eugenie Besserer. It tells the story of a criminal, facing execution, who wants to kill the man in the next cell for being in love with his former girlfriend.
Betty Compson was an American actress and film producer who got her start during Hollywood's silent era. She is best known for her performances in The Docks of New York and The Barker, the latter of which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Josef von Sternberg was an Austrian-born filmmaker whose career successfully spanned the transition from the silent to the sound era, during which he worked with most of the major Hollywood studios. He is best known for his film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich in the 1930s, including the highly regarded Paramount/UFA production The Blue Angel (1930).
The Last Command is a 1928 silent romantic drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg, and written by John F. Goodrich and Herman J. Mankiewicz from a story by Lajos Bíró. The film stars Emil Jannings, who won the first Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 1929 ceremony for his performances in this film and The Way of All Flesh, the only year multiple roles were considered. Evelyn Brent and William Powell co-star.
Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova, known professionally as Olga Baclanova, was a Russian-born actress who found success in Hollywood films, as well as stage roles in the US and the United Kingdom, she was mainly billed as an exotic blonde temptress, who was given the title of the "Russian Tigress".
The Blue Angel is a 1930 German musical comedy-drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings and Kurt Gerron. Written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller and Robert Liebmann, with uncredited contributions by Sternberg, it is based on Heinrich Mann's 1905 novel Professor Unrat and set in an unspecified northern German port city. The Blue Angel presents the tragic transformation of a respectable professor into a cabaret clown and his descent into madness. The film was the first feature-length German sound film and brought Dietrich international fame. It also introduced her signature song, Friedrich Hollaender and Robert Liebmann's "Falling in Love Again ". The film is considered a classic of German cinema.
Underworld is a 1927 American silent crime film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Clive Brook, Evelyn Brent and George Bancroft. The film launched Sternberg's eight-year collaboration with Paramount Pictures, with whom he would produce his seven films with actress Marlene Dietrich. Journalist and screenwriter Ben Hecht won an Academy Award for Best Original Story.
Macao is a 1952 American adventure film noir directed by Josef von Sternberg and Nicholas Ray and starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix, and Gloria Grahame. Shot in black-and-white, it was distributed by RKO Pictures.
A Woman of the Sea, also known by its working title Sea Gulls, is an unreleased silent film produced in 1926 by the Chaplin Film Company. It is one of only two lost Charlie Chaplin films, having been destroyed by Chaplin himself as a tax writeoff.
The Salvation Hunters is a 1925 American silent drama film which marked the directorial debut of the 30-year old Josef von Sternberg. The feature stars Georgia Hale and George K. Arthur, and would bring Sternberg, "a new talent", to the attention of the major movie studios, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount Pictures. Film Mercury included The Salvation Hunters in its ten-best list for the films of 1925.
The Devil Is a Woman is a 1935 American romance film directed and photographed by Josef von Sternberg, adapted from the 1898 novel La Femme et le pantin by Pierre Louÿs. The film was based on a screenplay by John Dos Passos, and stars Marlene Dietrich, Lionel Atwill, Cesar Romero, Edward Everett Horton, and Alison Skipworth. The movie is the last of the six Sternberg-Dietrich collaborations for Paramount Pictures.
Sergeant Madden is a 1939 film noir forerunner directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Wallace Beery. The supporting cast in this dark police crime drama, noted for its imaginative and evocative cinematography, includes Tom Brown, Laraine Day, Alan Curtis, and Marc Lawrence.
Jet Pilot is a 1957 American Cold War romance film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring John Wayne and Janet Leigh. It was written and produced by Jules Furthman, and presented by Howard Hughes. Filming lasted more than eighteen months, beginning in 1949. The last day of shooting was in May 1953, but the Technicolor film was kept out of release by Hughes due to his tinkering until October 1957, by which time Hughes had sold RKO. Universal-International ended up distributing Jet Pilot.
The Case of Lena Smith is a 1929 American silent drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg, starring Esther Ralston and James Hall, and released by Paramount Pictures.
Crime and Punishment is a 1935 American drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg for Columbia Pictures. The screenplay was adapted by Joseph Anthony and S.K. Lauren from Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1866 novel of the same title. The film stars Peter Lorre in the lead role of Raskolnikov.
The Exquisite Sinner is a 1926 American silent drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg and adapted by Alice Duer Miller from the novel Escape by Alden Brooks. Starring Conrad Nagel and Renée Adorée, the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) never given a general release. No known print of the film has been recovered to date. Later that same year a second feature film Heaven on Earth, directed by Phil Rosen was released with the same cast and same sets, but a different screenplay. Rosen's version performed poorly at the box office. Sternberg reported, "the result was two ineffective films instead of one.” The American Film Institute Catalog Feature Films: 1921-30 by The American Film Institute.
Three Sinners (1928) is a silent film directed by Rowland V. Lee, starring Pola Negri, and co-starring Warner Baxter, Olga Baclanova, and Paul Lukas.
The Drag Net, also known as The Dragnet, is a 1928 American silent crime drama produced by Famous Players–Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures based on the story "Nightstick" by Oliver H.P. Garrett. It was directed by Josef von Sternberg from an original screen story and starring George Bancroft and Evelyn Brent.
An American Tragedy (1931) is an American pre-Code drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg. It was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on Theodore Dreiser's 1925 novel An American Tragedy and the 1926 play adaptation. These were based on the historic 1906 murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette at Big Moose Lake in upstate New York.